by Marina Adair
“That’s all right. We’ll figure something out.” Joie kissed him back until Brett picked her up with one arm for an annoyingly long kiss that had everyone looking away.
Cal took the opportunity to look at Glory. Really look at her. Warm eyes, soft smile, hardly any makeup at all. The woman was stunning. She was also fidgeting with her skirt and looking everywhere but at him.
“Go wash up and then come back out,” Joie said to Brett.
Brett walked right past him, checked him hard with his shoulder, and whispered, “Have fun.”
His little dog Boo tapped the deck behind him as man and purse-dog made their way into the house.
Cal picked up a few diagrams of a hotel ballroom. It had little round tables penciled in and a gazebo drawn on the back lawn. “What’s this?”
“An alternate option to having the pageant and Cotillion at the Duncan Plantation,” Glory said. “But it’s really expensive and would blow most of the budget.” She looked nervous. And damn if he wasn’t right there with her. Which was ridiculous. Cal didn’t do nervous with women. Hadn’t ever since Tawny. “We were hoping to have it at Fairchild House.”
“But I had already booked a wedding and two culinary tours that weekend,” Anna said apologetically. “It’s an All Things Peach tour coming in for the Harvest Fest.”
“So we’re looking into other options,” Glory said. “I was going to e-mail you about this later, but you’re here now.”
“That I am.” He looked at Glory and then back to the table. “And it looks like you found your army.”
“Our army,” she clarified. “Charlotte, being a former Miss Peach and the current regent of the Sugar Peaches, has agreed to step in as our expert on all things pageant.”
“I volunteered to oversee food selection and the menu,” Joie said. “I’m working with the executive chef now to see what kind of pricing we can get. And Anna so generously offered her talent to plan the logistics of the day. She is just amazing at event planning and reimagining spaces. Talented, organized, and knows teen girls. She is the perfect person to give this pageant a face-lift.” Joie poured Cal a second glass of sweet tea and placed it by the seat right next to Anna. “Show Cal your ideas to update the Presenting Ceremony.”
Cal would rather sit next to the dog. Or be shot. Anything to get out of sitting next to Anna and her “ideas,” which was nothing more than crafty woman-speak for “setup.” And Cal didn’t like to be set up, on dates or otherwise. Nope, he didn’t do dates, didn’t do serious, and he most certainly didn’t do mothers of his daughter’s teammates.
But Anna looked at him with shy expectation, Joie preened over her handiwork, Glory was back to ignoring him, and Cal had no choice. Either admit he’d kissed his brother’s best friend or sit down next to a cheer mom.
Anna suddenly looked so uncertain that he almost just blurted it out. But he didn’t because Joie was watching him closely and she could read him almost as good as Brett, so Cal took his seat and looked over Anna’s idea. Not that he heard a word she was saying—he was too busy being aware of Glory, and fighting with the urge to move, explain, do something other than sit there staring.
It was obvious to everyone what was going on and Glory was a smart woman. Jesus, this was why he didn’t date locals.
Not that they were dating, he reminded himself. They’d shared a kiss. An incredibly hot kiss that—whoa, just thinking about her lips had him shifting in his chair, which was a bad move since she stopped flipping and looked up. Her on one side of the table watching him on the other, with who he assumed was his dinner companion for the evening.
“This all looks great,” he said, his gaze solidly on Glory. Joie’s was still on him and Cal could tell it wasn’t a good conclusion his sister-in-law was coming to.
The correct one, but not a good one.
“You should check out the applications that have come in.” Glory held up the stack as proof, then dropped them on the table—right next to her—while flashing him a hopeful smile. “We have over twenty Sugar Pull entries but only a quarter of that for Miss Peach.”
“It looks like you’ve done a great job handling the pageant, so why don’t I head up the Sugar Pull and get everything there in order. Divide and conquer.”
Glory opened her mouth as though she was about to tell him that was the stupidest idea ever, then closed it, picking up the stack of applications. Maybe she was nervous about Kitty or being in charge of the pageant or the fact that they had a sexy little secret. Hell, he didn’t know, but for some reason he cared.
“Okay,” she finally said, sounding disappointed, and damn if that didn’t have him fidgeting. “I guess there’s a lot to go over before next week’s Harvest Council meeting, so splitting up the workload would be smart.”
“Agreed.”
“Good. I’ll e-mail you the rest of the information, so we are on the same page.” Purse in hand, applications clutched to her chest, Glory stood. So did Cal, so fast he nearly knocked over his chair. “I have to get going but thanks, everyone, for all the help.”
“You aren’t staying?”
“No, I have a test to study for,” she said. “And you have dinner.”
He looked over at his date, who blinked up at him with hopeful expectation, and an unsettling mix of helplessness and disappointment collided in his chest, making it hard to breathe. Because Cal realized he wasn’t upset about Joie setting him up on a blind date. He was upset that Glory wasn’t his blind date.
And wasn’t that all kinds of ridiculous.
The guy who kept it casual, striving for surface, was actually upset because he wasn’t going to get the chance to talk with Glory about his day, his chat with Tawny, and how the hell he was supposed to tell his kiddo that her mom was going to be a no-show. About how that was going to break his heart.
Even worse, Cal was upset because Glory was the one to, once again, remove herself from an uncomfortable situation, leaving to make it easier on everyone else, when all he had to do was ask her to stay.
Chapter 11
If last night had been awkward, today was a disaster. Glory spent the majority of her morning in urgent care, fielding patients who all suffered from different ailments, but were seeking the same outcome—a “Gone Fishing” prescription. With a good-patient sticker and a friendly smile, they were sent on their way. All except Frank, who was twenty years Glory’s senior and co-owner of Frank Brothers’ Taxidermy, Ammo, and Fine Jewelry. His request was for a different kind of therapy—one that apparently needed to be said directly to her breasts, so he’d been escorted out by security—no good-patient sticker for him.
By lunch it became clear that there was an epidemic of head lice going around the playground, which resulted in three students taking scissors to their hair, one student taking scissors to someone else’s hair, and Cole Andrews, wanting to save Chewbacca from the embarrassment of being shaved, stuck him in his cave—and was waiting in Exam Room 11. Which was why when Dr. Holden paged Glory, she happily handed off her charts to another nurse, and made her way to Charlotte’s office.
At first, Glory thought she was being summoned to talk about pageant stuff or, worse, her abrupt exit last night. But when she got to Charlotte’s office, the door was open and the good doctor sat at her desk looking over Glory’s proposal.
Determined to do something productive, mainly not spend her whole night picking apart what had happened at Joie’s—or more accurately what had not happened—Glory had spent most of her evening, and part of the morning, working on her proposal. She’d never written a proposal of this magnitude before. There were so many moving parts, which would all be scrutinized by professionals, so she’d sent it off to Charlotte to see if she was on the right track.
Based on the traffic jam of notes in the margin, Glory was pretty sure she’d not only derailed, but managed to obliterate the track.
She tapped on the door. “Is this a good time?”
Charlotte looked up and smiled. Good new
s, bad news, end of the world, she was a true steel magnolia. “Have a seat.”
She gestured to the chair facing her desk and Glory checked the hallway, looking for a frantic mom with a lice-infected second grader. No such luck. She took a seat.
“I got your proposal this morning, and although it has all the elements I asked for, it’s obvious you’ve never written something like this.”
“Is it that bad?”
Charlotte took a moment to look at her office door then leaned in and lowered her voice. “I did some checking into our competition and there are two candidates who have me worried.”
That didn’t sound good.
“They both have stellar résumés, spent years in hospital management, and have advanced degrees. But their ideas are nothing special and too big-city to really work in our small town. We need something that makes us really stand apart from the pack, really highlight the benefit for the patient and the volunteer.”
Glory thought back to her conversation with Spencer about the scholarship and how with the right girl it could change her life. Then remembered how Dr. Blair had given her direction, an environment where she felt useful and successful, and he gave her the confidence to find her own personal reason to push forward. “I think I might have a few ideas.”
“Good.” Charlotte took out a glossy-covered proposal and slid it across the tabletop. It was sleek, professional, and nothing like what Glory had created. “This is a proposal from a few years back. The program doesn’t relate and I’ve blacked out any confidential information, but I want you to see how they structured it and use it as a template for yours. First impressions mean everything with the board; they are easily impressed by flash,” she said, rolling her eyes, then flipped to an extensive spreadsheet with graphs and charts. “You’ll need an accurate operations budget and a twenty-four-month Gantt chart, but don’t forget to make it personal; make them picture all the teens and pediatric patients who will be better off because of you and your program.”
Glory willed herself not to panic. “When do you need this by?”
Charlotte picked up her phone and scrolled to her calendar. “The proposals are due on the thirty-first. If you can get it to me by the twenty-seventh, that will give us time to adjust it if needed.”
The homework in her book bag wasn’t going to do itself, and between the Harvest Fest, earning a living, and rounds at the hospital, the only time Glory wasn’t pushing close to crazy was the five hours a night she slept—four on weekends. But this project meant everything to her—apparently more than sleeping because she said, “You bet.”
She had no idea what a Gantt chart was or even how to balance her own checkbook, but there was no one submitting who had a more personal mission than Glory. And unlike charts and spreadsheets, passion wasn’t something that could be googled.
“Now.” Charlotte leaned in, steepling her fingers under her chin. “You want to talk about what’s going on with you and Cal?”
Oh boy.
“Nothing is going on.” At least not anymore.
“Honey, last night Cal looked like he’d been caught with his pants down.” She put her hand to her chest, then fanned herself. “There was this smoldering heat that singed the table, and then you hightailed it out of there.”
“He had a date and I didn’t want to interrupt and…what? We’re planning the Harvest Fest, that’s all.” When Charlotte’s cucumber cool glare was too much to handle, Glory sighed. “Fine, I might have had a teensy crush on him, and was considering asking him to Cotillion, but it’s obvious that Joie has someone else in mind, so no biggie.”
She refused to roll her eyes even though she sounded exactly like Payton right then.
“It’s a shame.” Charlotte shook her head, her blond layers swinging with effortless style. “Passing up a chance with a McGraw is like telling Jesus you’ll take a tour of heaven later.”
“Then why don’t you ask him to Cotillion?”
“Me and McGraw men don’t mix so well, romantically speaking,” her friend said, her voice laced with an uneasy mixture of disappointment and sadness. “It brings on a case of heartburn that never goes away.”
Glory stilled. This was bad. Really bad. There was no way Charlotte could be referring to Brett—she knew every Sugar conquest he’d ever had—and the good doctor wasn’t on that list. And Jace was too backwoods and bad-boy for a Sugar Peach, which only left one McGraw. “I don’t remember you mentioning that you had a romantic history with a McGraw.”
“I didn’t.” Without another word, Charlotte stood and with an elegant smile walked out into the hallway, giving Glory one more reason to steer clear of Cal.
Three hours later, and well after Glory’s shift ended, she found herself in the break room watching an animated professor with bushy brows on YouTube give a tutorial about how to create a Gantt chart using Excel in three easy steps.
“Three easy steps, my ass.” She was still on step one: Enter project tasks. She typed in “finish proposal” and then drew a blank.
“Three easy steps, huh?”
Glory looked up to find Cal’s big, badass body in the doorway. His hair was slightly tousled as though he’d just come in from outside and he had a small notebook in hand. His expression, however, was all business, just like the blue button-up and fancy dark jeans he had on.
Okay, so he was a little windblown and his shirt was untucked, but he looked hot. Seriously hot.
“Can you repeat what those exact steps are? You know, in case there is a test on your ass later? I want to be prepared.” He waltzed into the room, all charm, muscles, and easy swagger, and Glory knew, without a doubt, exactly what steps and tasks would fall on the GET CAL McGRAW NAKED Gantt chart. No tutorial needed.
“Unless”—he stopped short of the table and looked at the stacks of paper and scribbled notes—“I’m interrupting something important.”
“Important? Yes. Interrupting?” She shook her head at the sad truth. “You could come back in the morning and I’d be sitting right here looking exactly like this. Just more bags under my eyes.” Speaking of appearances. “You going to church or did someone die?”
He looked down and smiled as though he was just remembering what he wore. “I had a meeting with the hospital’s board.”
“How did it go?”
“They wanted an updated timeline for the new wing and to make sure we hit the major milestones as promised. We are on target, which they already knew, so it ended early.” He straightened and pushed off the wall. “Then I figured since I was inside the hospital and not covered in concrete and sweat, I’d come see you. One of the nurses said you’d clocked out but I saw your car in the parking lot. So I waited.”
“But I saw Charlotte and Mr. Holden leave over an hour ago.”
He shrugged. “About an hour in, I figured I’d come find you.”
While she appreciated the way his button-up hugged his broad chest and matched his baby blues, she was more interested in the fact that Cal had waited by her car for over an hour. Because an hour, in dress shoes, was a long time for a guy to wait…unless he thought she was worth the wait. And that made her heart skip. “Why?”
His easy swagger faded into confusion, as though he wasn’t sure himself. Then he held up a coffee cup and a to-go box, both with the Gravy Train logo on them, and Glory’s stomach grumbled, a reminder that it was well past dinnertime. “Lemon bar, a latte, and an apology. Last night was—”
Awful. Embarrassing. A wake-up call. “Awkward?”
“Okay, we can go with that,” he said, setting the offering on the table. The mingled scents of strong coffee and sweet vanilla filled the room.
“Not just a latte.” She took the cup and inhaled. “A hazelnut vanilla latte.”
“Not that it’s an excuse, but I wasn’t in the best mood when I got to Joie’s last night to start with. Tawny called on the way to cancel her weekend with Payton,” he admitted and Glory’s heart went out to him.
“How did P
ayton take it?”
Cal reached for his hat, only to find it was missing, so he ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up on end. “Not good.”
That was the understatement of the year. She’d seen how excited Payton had been, knew how much she was counting on her mom to talk to Cal about the pageant. No Tawny meant Payton would have to come clean with her dad all by herself or withdraw.
Poor kid.
Even poorer Cal. Glory remembered the look on Jelly Lou’s face every time she had to explain why Billy wasn’t going to be able to make it to her birthday, or Christmas, or Father’s Day. He was wearing it right now.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too.” He sounded tired, the kind that went soul deep. “About Tawny and about last night. When I walked out on that patio, I didn’t know what to say or if I should even say anything. Joie asked me to dinner so I walked in expecting dinner.”
“And you found me and your date at the same table.”
“I didn’t know she was my date.”
“I know,” Glory admitted. “I was being a jerk. Joie said she was going to find you a date for Cotillion; I just didn’t know I’d be there to see it. So I left.”
“I’m not taking Anna to Cotillion.”
“You’re not?” That was a surprise. Anna was sweet, cute, a great mother, and according to Joie, Cal’s perfect match.
“No,” he said and Glory’s heart, already thumping fast against her chest, sped up until all she could hear was the blood rushing in her ears and Cal’s weighted silence. “I already have a date.”
Glory held hard to that smile, determined not to show how much those five words stung. “Who are you taking?”
“Payton.”
“Payton.” She laughed, relief making her chest relax. Holding on to Payton’s application and not telling Cal had been eating at her. She was happy that Payton had come clean. “I bet she’s ecstatic. She’ll make a great Miss Peach contestant.”